Fantasy Football

I’ve watched football on a pretty regular basis for the past fifteen years or so, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so unimpressed with a close football game as I was last night. Turnovers, penalties (two called back pick sixes which must have been deflating for anyone with the Cards defense, blown assignments, dropped passes…this is life in the NFC west. I guess its a testament to the Cardinals that they were able to pull it out, but we feel like the game demonstrated why the Niners are still struggling and the Cards are going to be devastated in the playoffs more so than it was clinic of high caliber NFL football.

None the less, and I will give him credit here, Mike Singletary made that team look like they actually play football for a living. It wasn’t the prettiest performance I’ve ever seen and the Cardinals effortlessly sliced up that defense, but the offense looked competent. That is something I haven’t been able to say about the Niners since the Jeff Garcia-Terrell Owens days. He seems to have righted the ship for the interim, its a matter of reaching their destination at this point. Sadly, for Niners fans, I think that means a max of six wins on the season.

But anyways, we like to hold off on doing our “best/worst of week ___” lists after Monday’s game for obvious reasons. And this game produced about fifteen viable candidates for each list that we limit to five. So here they are, you’re fifteen surprise performers from week 10.

1) Dustin Keller
He has been lurking around for the past few weeks, establishing a repore with Brett Favre and doing all the right things to make himself an asset for the playoffs. Remember Favre’s proclivity to throw to the tight end in Green Bay? Whether it was Chmura (who had his own set of proclivities), Franks or Donald Lee, Favre seemed to love the tight end as an unsuspecting bail out as opposed to the running back. In other words, this is the probably the first and last time we’ll consider his performance a surprise.

2) Mark Bradley
Who the fuck is Mark Bradley? Is he white? He sounds white, making this all the more implausible. I think next year I am going to do a free public league and start nothing but special teams players and third down backs at the skill positions to see how I fare. Anyhow, its good to see the Chiefs have a new potential weapon other than Dwayne Bowe.

3) Tyler Thigpen
I know we had him on here last week so this is technically breaking the rules. It’s kind of fucking retarded to have a list of players that exceeded expectations, and then put one of them on here in back to back weeks. But this is Tyler Thigpen we’re talking about. He went to Coastal Carolina! was a third stringer coming into the season! He’s two years younger than me! Any week he passes for over 200 yards and 3 touchdowns, he has guaranteed himself a spot on this list. If his coach wasn’t an erratically principled mess and set to go down in flames, he may have even pulled out the win with some more favorable officiating. We would say he’s the priority regardless of what happens with Brodie Croyle and Damon Huard, but again, Herm Edwards is a mystery wrapped in a riddle. He could put a gazelle in at receiver and it wouldn’t surprise us.

Meet the new slot receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs.

4) Bo Scaife
Way to piss off the ‘72 Dolphins, Bo. When the Bears bottle up your run like Chris Johnson is Shaun Alexander in 2006, you come through with ten catches for 78 yards and a touchdown. Needless to say, you mightily upset not only the Dolphins, but also the 11 other teams in 12 team leagues. Thanks to your efforts and the Steelers blowing a win against the Colts, we are now believers in the Titans. This team will get to the Superbowl in the ugliest way imaginable. Ironically, we still think you lose to the team Collins last went to the Superbowl with.

5) Joe Flacco
Alright, fine. We’ll give credit where it’s due. And Joe Flacco deserves a lot of credit (though we’re still not sold on his merits for a long career as a starter). They played the Texans, which are inarguably the worst fantasy defense in the league. But he’s a rookie quarterback for a team that would be in the playoffs if they started today. A two touchdown, two point conversion and no interception performance gets him the five slot here.